[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

The point is, none of that mattered to me at the time as much as just how sweet I found it seeing the episode end on that note of Wataru finding the courage to sing. It was the first time I think I really started appreciating what the show was doing with his character, if I didn't get it already from the whole Nago hero worship thing.

It's an episode that probably bothered me more for the sloppiness and missed opportunities than it did for any particular story choices. Like, even the Yuri stuff... it only needed a moment for her to verbally transition from You Are Stealing My Heritage to Christ I Dodged A Bullet Here, but they instead squandered what little time they had burnishing Zanki's heroism.

But the rest of it had plenty of things I liked (I will never be angry at a decision to end a story with Wataru overcoming his fear of crowds by singing a song about how he needs to understand himself better through the act of pushing against his own expectations for his future!) without really deciding on how they wanted to get there. It's a bunch of interesting dilemmas that don't have interesting penultimate scenes.

Still, yeah, I liked Wataru and his friends playing to the exact crowd he had an anxiety dream about, but this time he succeeds through his own confidence and bravery. He's a sweet boy that I'm rooting for, you know? I can't hate the ending, even if I'm not a fan of the path to get to it.

(It's no wonder Wataru has stage fright at this show, now that I think about it. He basically prophesied an angry crowd turning on him during the first song of the night! Oh god! That is terrifying to even consider, let alone live through!)